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Sipdown (181/185)!

Ughh, my everything aches and is tender/sore. I’m so tired.

I doubled up the leaf on this guy to try and get a more full taste and what would you know, it actually worked! This came out incredibly rich, full dark chocolate with nutty notes and that full “roasty” Genmaicha quality. This must be the lovely flavour all of you guys rave about. And the downside, of course, is that it’s my last cup.

Wah Wah Wah…

That’s sort of my fault though:

I finished making my tea sample for Geordan tonight – he’s probably going to be very overwhelmed, although he says he can handle it. The final count was 50 different tea samples! I’m not going to lie, I took advantage of his undeveloped palette to lighten the quantity of some of my less tasty/older/lower quality blends. However, I also made sure that between the 50 teas he has a wide variety of tea types from different companies at different quality levels.

Companies include: DAVIDsTEA, Teavanna, Tea Desire, Della Terra, RiverTea, Nina’s Paris, Verdant, Red Leaf Tea, Cuppa’T Specialty Teas, Teavivre, Kusmi, McQuarrie’s, Camellia Sinensis, 52Teas, and Harney & Sons.

He even got this blend (which is why it’s my fault this is my last cup). So wish him luck!

I was so thirsty today and once I was done my work teas for the day I had no other options than what was sold in store since I couldn’t leave during my shift (even when I was on break) so this became the default, again…

I really think I need to nudge up my rating (though only slightly) because this is growing on me a fair bit and it really can’t be that bad if I keep coming back to it over the other cold drinks we sell in the store.

Oh! And in other tea/work related news we got a shipment of bagged Green tea in a few days ago, so we’re selling that now. Some of my coworkers were thrilled to have green tea available to them on break now and I’ve now made it my mission to bring in some better green tea (although my selection is limited) so they don’t have to drink that tea dust garbage.

The green tea we sell is worse than bagged Lipton because it’s a “No Name” brand…

Ew.

Work timolino tea today taken w. milk.

I think I played it too safe with this one today: the combination of underleafing, understeeping, and then adding milk left this as a very weak cup with only the faintest hint of black tea on top of the creamy, thick milk.

It feels like such a struggle to get the balance right on this one…

Sipdown (182/186)!

Long, lost forgotten sample from the super kind Lala back from early/mid January when we met up for tea together. I probably only forgot about this because it’s a green blend. Recently rediscovered/remembered it, however, and so I saved the sample and stuck it in the sipdown drawer.

I debated going hot or cold but ultimately cold won out because I knew that would use it up all at once. Maybe cold was the wrong direction though because this cold brew is pretty foul. Maybe it’s the hops or maybe it’s just the green base in general but this tastes like some kind of slimy seaweed coated fruit. I feel like it should be vibrant green and gooey…

However I drank the whole dang 20 oz. of it! I had a very long (10 hours), stressful shift and I wasn’t allowed to leave the store for all of it (for several reasons, but the main one being I was the only member from the management team present so I couldn’t abandon my sole cashier for the day – if she got stuck or needed cash/to void something there would be no one there to do it) so I made due with what I had available to me – even if it was just slimy, seaweed fruit tea.

Sorry Lala – but I just don’t appreciate this blend (even though I more than appreciate your generosity). Happiness is not Hoppiness.

Sipdown (183/187)!

…But only a temporary one: it sounds like I’m getting more of it from Courtney. Definitely looking forward to it!

I finished this baby off by cold brewing the last tbsp. and a half in two shots of Raspberry Vodka which sat in the fridge overnight getting all saturated and stuff. I then strained it this morning and now I’m drinking it in the evening with a splash of pineapple juice squeezed into it.

It’s bright, almost neon, purple! How intriguing!

I have to say – it’s not bad this way but it really isn’t anywhere near as good as it was prepared as a straight up, nothing fancy cold brew. When I have more I’ll probably just still to enjoying it that way.

Prepared like this, it’s a little more like the Raspberry Lemonade I was originally expecting, but with a creamy/burny aftertaste. And now that I’ve had my alcohol for the night I’m feeling sleepy so I think I’ll sleep it off and try to get well rested for the long, undoubtedly miserable, shift I have ahead of me tomorrow…

EDIT: Oh hey, I forgot to mention it in any of my tasting notes! Today is/was my friend Geordan’s 19th Birthday! He recently immigrated to Canada from Jamaica and this is his first year in Canada. It was kind of sad, really, that I couldn’t celebrate with him because of work. He recently asked me to make a tea sampler for him because he’s fascinated by my tea obsession: he has no idea what he’s in for…

I’m going to go all out and make the most massive sampler for him as a birthday present! He’ll be overwhelmed by all the tea. You know what’s really fascinating though? He grew up drinking almost solely herbal teas (Peppermint primarily) – but all the tea he drank was made with things grown in his backyard!

I find that a lot more interesting than my going online and just buying what sounds cool. He grew what sounded interesting!

Mmm!

Timolino work tea, enjoyed in the latter half of my shift and the bus ride home.

I’m slowly working on sipping this one down. It’s not that I don’t enjoy it (quite the opposite, really) but more so that I need to clear out black teas if I want to purchase more of them (note how I placed two tea orders tonight but neither included any black blends) and I also want to clear out Butiki blends to try more of them. So sipping this one down will be a double whammy and free up cupboard space for a new black Butiki blend! I know I can always order this again next time I want some of it.

This timolino in particular was especially “pie crust” flavoured. So good.

I had this at work today on break because I needed a cold drink to go alongside my hot supper. It was nothing special but not awful either. Really I’ve said most of what can be said about this one.

I’m not looking forward to work at all tomorrow: I work 9AM to 7PM and there is only one other person coming in for the day besides myself. She has the same shift as me but is just a cashier so I’m going to have to do a metric butt fuck of extra work to keep the store looking nice (we have an inspection on Monday from Head Office) while balancing the demands of cash/till (so the line up doesn’t get too big). I’ll also be doing all the opening and closing paperwork/coin counts by myself which is normally a two person job. And on top of that I don’t get a break at all because I’m the only keyholder working tomorrow.

Fuck Carole. Fuck the lay offs. Fuck Everything.

I swear to God 80% of the time the overtime pay isn’t worth the extra work/stress.

Sipdown (184/188)!

So in addition to placing my Red Leaf order tonight I also placed a small 52Teas order. I had cold brewed this to take to work with me during the day so I could decide by tonight whether I’d want to include it in the order.

I sipped on it all morning, including before work on a trip to the post office where I mailed off some tea samples to VariaTEA so I could laugh at her as her cupboard balloons up even more. I admit; I may have taken advantage of her a little and sent some samples of things she’s probably tried but I wasn’t 100% sure about. They were DT blends I wanted to get rid of: by sending them to her I got in one extra “sipdown” (I don’t think it really counts though because I cheated). Goodbye Pure Chai, which DT sent me as a freebie sample in an online order. You were never wanted!

This tea was kind of solidly average. As a cold brew it had a light generic melon taste that maybe leaned towards candy watermelons. It was a touch weak though and not a big enough stand apart for me to want it in addition to be both white melon blends from Butiki which I also have stocked. So it didn’t make it into my order (which was Passionfruit Banana, Caramel Apple Oolong, and Hindbaersnitter White).

I’d still recommend trying it if you get the chance, though!

Thank you Courtney for the sample! I love getting to try new matcha flavours so it was a pleasant surprise. I also liked being able to try it before placing my matcha order (which I put in tonight: 30g of Bananas & Cream, Cheesecake, Coconut, Pear, Pineapple, Strawberries & Cream, and Tiramisu).

I had this in the morning for breakfast and I have to say… Not so impressed.

It was prepared in cold milk but I didn’t really get much of any kind of flavour from it: just maybe a faint touch of creaminess? But it was weak and left me wanting so much more from it. Not my cuppa tea at all…

But still thankful I got to try it! Maybe I’ll double the dose next cup…

Sipdown (186/190)!

Thanks greatly to VariaTEA for the sample! I was so, so curious about this one so I’m very happy I could scratch the itch that was making me want to pick up a pouch. But you know how scratching an itch is; sometimes it just makes that spot itch even more…

Now that I’ve had this yummy tea I kind of really want more because the strawberry was so creamy and yummy and I really could get a feel for the namesake! I’m being logical about it though: I still have an untapped pouch of the straight Marshmallow Treat which I’m sure I’ll love as much as this Strawberry Version and if I was suddenly in possession of both that’d be way too much Genmaicha on my hands! So I’ll just try and not be greedy and be happy with what I have instead.

Totally not pouting right now or anything like that…

(But not gonna lie: logic would go out the window if Razzleberry was available again: this one is good but that one is penultimate to the orgasmic wonders of Japon…)